Archive for October, 2016

The planning stages for Christmas Parties are in full swing, and Louise and Trish are hard at work getting everything ready. We want everyone to be able to have the artwork they want for their events, but we do need to provide ample time for completion.

For events during the first weekend of December, art requests must be submitted by Friday, November 4th at 23:59 MHQ time. For all other Christmas Parties, requests must be submitted no later than Friday, November 11th at 23:59 MHQ time. You can submit these requests by contacting louise@munzee.com after you’ve submitted your event to the calendar. Following that date, only generic artwork options will be available for badges and icons. All packages will still be available.

Don’t miss out on getting custom artwork for your Christmas Party! We’re excited to see all of the great designs Trish makes for you!

When we introduced the Recycle Special in June, we were extremely encouraged by the response and the extent to which the map was cleaned up. We want everyone playing to have the best experience possible, and a large part of that experience is being able to locate munzees. This is especially important for Mythological Munzees and other bouncing specials.

Since that introduction, we’ve added badges and new Recycle dates to continually keep the map up to date and give you reasons to visit previously capped/deployed areas. This has also allowed you to grow the map in new ways. Now, we’re giving you another chance to Recycle.

From now (15:00 MHQ time) through Monday, October 31st at 23:59 MHQ time, Recycle Icons will once again be live on the map. As a refresher, these icons will be on (some) physical munzees that have not been capped in the last 365 days. You will earn 25 points for capping the Recycle Special, and the owner will earn 10 points. You do not get the points/icon associated with the original munzee (e.g. If a Recycle Icon is on a Mini Mystery, you do NOT get the random split of points AND the points for Recycle Icon.)

We’ve got a lot of exciting things coming in the next few months, and we want you to be able to add them to a clean, rejuvenated map.

It’s hard to believe that it’s been a year since Rob was away and the team went a little power crazy. Our #DontTellRob sale started one year ago today and included the introduction of the 2D man himself, Flat Rob. Well we couldn’t let this day pass without at least a little acknowledgement.

We’ve bumped up the Flat Rob time frame that was supposed to begin tomorrow. Flat Robs are on the map starting NOW (15:00 MHQ time) and will be on through October 31st at 23:59 MHQ time. Rob isn’t quite out of the office for the event this weekend yet, but we can pretend for the occasion.

But wait, that’s not all! Flat Robs are also discounted throughout the weekend. You can find Flat Robs in the Munzee Online Store for $4 until October 31st at 23:59 MHQ time. Get yours while you can!

We hope you enjoy the extra time with Flat Robs (we sure enjoy when real Rob isn’t here with us 😉 ).

As Munzee has grown over the years, the game has evolved in so many more ways than any of the co-founders could have imagined. We’ve certainly had our fair share of growing pains, but in its essence Munzee has tried to stick to its core goal of getting people out into the world. No one knows this better than those players who have been with us since the beginning. This week’s Player of the Week is Peter Lovell (Knightwood).

Who are you?
I’m Peter Lovell, known as Knightwood. I wanted a name connected with the area where I live, The New Forest, England. My wife cam up with this name, as The Knightwood Oak is the oldest tree in the New Forest, and she says it’s like me — getting old, rather large, and not much on top. Say no more! — So the name stuck.

Where in the world do you live?We live in New Milton, a town in Hampshire on the south coast of England very near the New Forest National Park where ponies and deer are often seen roaming around the forest. They have the freedom to go through the villages and cross over roads, so drivers have to take special care when out and about in the area.

Also pleased to say that our former #1 Player in the World, Iain Grant (Pilseyguy), also lives in the area.

How long have you played Munzee?I started playing the game in June 2013, but before that I had been a letterbox hunter for around 25 years here in the New Forest and on Dartmoor in Devon. I also have around a dozen caches hidden around the area.

How did you find Munzee?
This was through my newphew, Adrian Pitkin (The Machman), who now lives with his family in Perth, Western Australia. When they were staying here with his parents in Poole, we did a big cache walk up new Sixpenny Handley in Dorset in an attempt to get 100 in a day. We spotted a munzee on the way round. Adrian knew what these were and told me about it, so I got a new phone, downloaded the app, and was hooked.

What do you most enjoy about Munzee?
Well, it has taken me to places that I have never visited before, and I have gotten to meet many knew friends who play the game. Since I started playing, I have found munzees on a holiday in Adelaide, Melbourne, and Perth, and I went on a very wet, long weekend with The Machman in Cologne where I was able to get my First Loser, Lucky 7, and Unlucky 13 badges, so now I still have the big one to get one day. I’ve also taken many trips to London, and one of my last visits got the 100k Day badge.

I have also gotten to meet President Rob along with Louise at the event sin London and Christchurch when he visited the United Kingdom. This photo of me with them plus Matt was taken in front of the road to the Prime Minister’s home at 10 Downing Street before our London “Big Ben” May Meet this year, the day before they did their Rave and Ride Charity Event.

I am a member of a clan — Solentcoasters. We all enjoy the game, but with no pressure. I often meet up with some of the clan members, Dicky and Jilly — TwoHoots and NewTwo — on their visits up to the New Forest from Sussex where they live.

I enjoy deploying munzees as well. Most of mine start with the name “Knightwood”. I also have many Topaz Munzees in the forest village of Brockenhurst which now had the world’s biggest Topaz cluster.

What is on your wish list?Well I’ve passed my 1000 days and am a member of the Millionaire Club, so next target must be to double those numbers. I enjoy the way Rob and his team keep coming up with new ideas to keep the game fresh, so I’m always looking out for their new challenges.

I would like to re-visit Australia with family and friends in Perth and scan all those Mystery Blues at Burns Beach, north of the city. All of my virtuals out there are called “Knightwood’s – Wishing I was Downunder”.

See the Saints win the F.A. Cup at Wembley next May. It’s been 40 years since they beat Manchester United 1-0 to win the Cup.

Tell us about yourself!I am married to Sheila, and have been retired for 4 years now. I was always told that I would wonder how I had time to go to work, well it’s true. During my working days, I was a chef in hotels around the New Forest area.

Sheila has her horse, Risky, and I help out with any heavy jobs around the stable year, but I prefer to keep my feet firmly on the ground, so a good walk finding munzees helps.

Other hobbies include:
So besides Munzee, I try to play a round of golf once a week with friends, go swimming on the weekends, and a bit of gardening. These all keep me busy.

Big footy fan, too. Got my season ticket at St. Mary’s — home of the SAINTS — SOUTHAMPTON football club. They are doing well, and last season they finished 6th in the Premier League and will have matches in Europe next season, too.I do have my own “Pathtag”. If any other players also have their own and would like to swap, please contact me via Munzee messages.

Any last words?A big thank you to my friends who put my name forward to be POTW, and of course to Rob and his great team over in the USA for giving so much pleasure to so many around the world. Finally, a thank you to all players that put out their munzees for me to find.

We’re very proud to see the support you have given to the National Breast Cancer Foundation with the BCA charity specials. It’s been wonderful to watch the garden by their headquarters fill up and see the community create their own gardens around the world. We couldn’t ask for a better community of players.

We still have a limited number of spots left in the official garden, so we’ve decided to open them up to allow for a player to have a maximum of 2 in the garden instead of only one. Remember, these will only be available for purchase until October 31st at 23:59 MHQ time. If you haven’t purchased one already, don’t miss out! If you already have a pin in the garden and would like another, here’s your chance!

This morning, a distributed denial of service (DDoS) attack on a major DNS host occurred. It seems there is also another attack in progress. While Munzee itself is not being affected, some of the third-party services we use are. You may experience issues with images in the app or online not showing correctly, but the game is still functioning properly.

Shopify, the ecommerce platform that the Munzee Online Store runs on, is also being affected.

While this attack seems to be isolated to a single DNS host, we will be monitoring the situation and keep you up to date if our services become affected directly. You can also check the status of Munzee services on our status page.

We mentioned in a post earlier this month the dates that Flat Robs will be live and said that there may be some surprise appearances as well. Well Rob is heading out of town this weekend, and that means Flat Robs are coming! From tomorrow (October 21st) at 00:01 MHQ time through Sunday (October 23rd) at 23:59 MHQ time, Flat Robs will be live on the map.

As a reminder, Flat Robs are also going to be live the following dates:

I hope this blog post finds you well, in your respective corners of the world. Team Munzee knows that this game is driven forward by the community. You grow the map, grow the game, and care for one another deeply. We share the responsibility in growing the game worldwide, so we are excited to formally announce a partnership. This partnership will spread the name of Munzee and grow the player base worldwide. We would like to introduce you to Freeze Tag, a leading creator of social mobile games.

Our partnership with Freeze Tag will utilize a portion of our Munzee locations as a base map for AR games being built by Freeze Tag. These AR games will be built in the same genre as Pokemon Go, resulting in additional players visiting our locations and learning about Munzee. We will lend our geolocation gaming expertise in the projects to help create the best games available! We see this as a very positive step in spreading the word about Munzee and hope you will take a moment to visit our partner’s websites and check out their current apps. There is no information on launch dates available at this time for future partnership projects.

Please see the press release for more information! Stay tuned for exciting things in the future!

We are constantly looking for ways to improve the Munzee game and the services associated with it to better your experience as a player. While much of it is behind-the-scenes, sometimes it affects the availability of these services. Though we don’t like to have these instances, it’s all for the betterment of the game.

On Monday, October 24th, we will be conducting maintenance on the Munzee database. This will affect both Munzee and Eventzee services. The maintenance will begin at 10:00 MHQ time and will last anywhere between 15 minutes to an hour. During this time, updates will be provided through our social media channels. Once completed, a post will be made through our Announcements page and social media. You can also see and subscribe to status updates any time on our status page.